Christopher Steele claims Vladimir Putin is surrounded by doctors and takes breaks during meetings for treatment

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Vladimir Putin is “increasingly ill” and is “constantly accompanied” by a team of doctors, former British spy Christopher Steele has claimed. “And so clearly he is seriously ill, I mean how terminal or incurable it is not clear, we can’t be entirely sure,” Mr Steele said, adding that this health is affecting the governance of Russia. Mr Steele’s remarks on the 69-year-old president’s health come after an oligarch with close ties to Mr Putin was reportedly recorded saying that he is “very ill with blood cancer”. “There’s increasing disarray in the Kremlin and chaos in fact, that there’s no clear political leadership coming from Putin who is increasingly ill, and that in the military’s terms the structures of command and so on are not functioning as they should,” Mr Steele told the radio station.